


Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Poet

by ladysisyphus



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen, Parody, Poetry, T.S. Eliot - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-07-25
Updated: 2005-07-25
Packaged: 2017-12-11 14:04:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,172
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/799555
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladysisyphus/pseuds/ladysisyphus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For Albus Dumbledore<br/><em>il miglior mago</em></p>
            </blockquote>





	Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Poet

"Nam Sibyllam quidem Hogwarti ego ipse oculis meis  
vidi in turrem pendere, et cum illi pueri dicerent:  
Σιβυλλα τι θελεις; respondebat illa: Θελω ενα ποτο."

 

For Albus Dumbledore  
 _il miglior mago_

 

 

**I. THE BURIAL OF THE WOLFSBANE**

JUNE is the cruellest month, breeding  
Voldemort out of the dead land, mixing  
Crucio and Imperius, stirring  
Harry to behave like a prat.  
Winter kept us playing Quidditch, flying _5_  
Around with the stupid sport, ignoring  
Our coursework until the exams.  
Spare time surprised us, bringing us to Hogsmeade  
For a weekend with friends; we went to the inn,  
And carried on laughing, into the Three Broomsticks, _10_  
And drank butterbeer, and plotted for an hour.  
Bin gar keine Dark Wizard, stamm' aus Gryffindor, echt Weasley.  
And when we were children, staying at the Burrow,  
My friend's, he took me up on a broom,  
And I was frightened. He said, 'Mione, _15_  
'Mione, hold on tight. And up we went.  
In the country, there you feel free.  
I read, most of the night, and go back to school in the winter.

What are the plot-threads that clutch, what subplots grow  
Out of this pulpy rubbish? Son of James, _20_  
You cannot say, or guess, for you know only  
Your third-person limited perspective, where your adverbs breed,  
And the caps lock gives no shelter, the chapter no relief,  
And the seventh book no sign of surcease. Only  
There is a horcrux inside this dark cave, _25_  
(Come into the waters of this dark cave),  
And I will show you something different from either  
Your battles fought previous where someone did help you  
Or your battles to come which you must face alone;  
I will show you fear in a cupful of juice. _30_  
                 _Frisch weht der Plot_  
                 _Der Bookshelves zu._  
                 _Mein Chosen Kind,_  
                 _Wo whinest du?_  
"You gave me the prophecy first a year ago; _35_  
They called me the Chosen One."  
Yet when we came back, late, from the TriWizard Tournament,  
Your wand out, and your eyes wild, I could not  
Speak, and my spells failed, I was neither  
Living nor dead, and I knew nothing, _40_  
Looking into the champion of Light, the silence.  
 _Oed' und leer das Seer._

Madame Trelawney, famous clairvoyante,  
Had a bad cold, nevertheless  
Is known to be the wisest woman in Hogwarts, _45_  
With a wicked pack of cards. Here, said she,  
Is your card, the drowned Hogwarts Headmaster,  
(Those are bezoars that were his eyes. Look!)  
Here is Fleur, the Lady of the Wands,  
The lady of embarassing situations.  _50_  
Here is the woman with pink hair, and here the Owl,  
And here is the one-eyed auror, and this card,  
Which is blank, is something he carries in his flask,  
Which I am forbidden to see. I do not find  
The Dark Lord. Fear death by fanfic. _55_  
I see crowds of people, walking round in the Floo.  
Thank you. If you see dear Minister Fudge,  
Tell him I bring the prophecy myself:  
One must be so careful these days.

Unreal City, _60_  
Under the green mark of an Imperius curse,  
A crowd flowed into Diagon Alley, so many,  
I had not thought Death Eaters had undone so many.  
Hexes, short and infrequent, were exhaled,  
And each man fixed his eyes upon his wand. _65_  
Flowed through the gate and into the Leaky Cauldron,  
To where Tom the bartender polished the glasses  
With a faint nod for the niceties of canon.  
There I saw one I knew, and stopped him, crying: "Remus!  
"You who were with me at Hogwarts in Book 3! _70_  
"That Wolfsbane you planted last year in your garden,  
"Has it begun to sprout? Will it bloom this year?  
"Or has the sudden chaos disturbed its bed?  
"O keep the Dog far hence, that's partly men,  
"Or with his nails he'll dig it up again! _75_  
"You! hypocrite lecturer!mon professeur,mon loup!'

 

 

 

**II. A GAME OF WIZARD CHESS**

THE Chair he sat in, like a burnished throne,  
Sat afront the classroom, where the cauldrons  
Hang on stands wrought with fruited vines  
From which a mandrake root peeped out  _80_  
(Another hid its eyes behind its leaf)  
Doubled the flames of the warming fire  
Reflecting light from the cauldron-warmers as  
The glitter of his eyes rose to meet it,  
From sallowed cheeks and under greasy hair.  _85_  
In vials of ivory and coloured glass  
Unstoppered, lurked his strange synthetic potions,  
Unguent, powdered, or liquidtroubled, confused  
And drowned the sense in odours; stirred by the air  
That crept into the dungeon, these ascended _90_  
In fattening the prolonged candle-flames,  
Flung their smoke into the storage room,  
Stirring the pattern on the coffered ceiling.  
Huge pewter lined with copper  
Burned green and silver, boiled by the colored fire,  _95_  
In which sad light a class began to learn.  
Above the storage shelf was displayed  
As through a window gave upon the sylvan scene  
The Whomping Willow, by Marauders gone  
So rudely forced; yet there the Shrieking Shack  _100_  
Filled all the village with inviolable voice  
And still it moaned, and still the curious heard,  
"Ten points from Gryffindor."  
And other withered points of house  
Were deducted from the children, as though we care.  _105_  
Footsteps shuffled in the secret passage.  
Points on the map, under the portrait, his sneer  
Spread out into the dungeon  
Hissed into words, then would be savagely still.  _110_

"The Dark Lord is out to-night. Yes, out. I go with him.  
"Speak to me. Why do you never speak. Speak.  
"Why are you out of your dormitory? Why out? Why?  
"I never know why you are sneaking. Sneak.

I think we are in rats' alley _115_  
Where the traitor lost his hand.

'What is that noise?  
                      The werewolf under the door.  
'What is that noise now? What is the wolf doing?'  
                      Nothing again nothing. _120_  
                                              'Do  
'You know nothing? Do you see nothing? Do you remember  
'Nothing?'  
  I remember  
Those are scars upon his face.  _125_  
'Are you a wolf, or not? Is there nothing in your jaws?'  
                                                         But  
O O O O that Slitherian Rag  
It's so elegant  
So intelligent  _130_  
"What shall I do now? What shall I do?"  
"I shall rush out as I am, and walk the street  
"With my wand out, so. What shall we do tomorrow?  
"What shall we ever do?"  
                          Herbology at ten. _135_  
And if it rains, the common room at four.  
And we shall play a game of wizard chess,  
Watching knights carefully and waiting for a Weasley's Wizarding Wheeze.

When Umbridge gave detention, I said   
I didn't mince my words, I said to him myself, _140_  
I SOLEMNLY SWEAR I AM UP TO NO GOOD  
Now Albus's coming back, make yourself a bit smart.  
He'll want to know what you done with that memory he gave you  
To get yourself some backstory. He did, you were there.  
You take this all, Harry, and figure it out,  _145_  
He said, I swear, I can't trust you to remember.  
I couldn't think of a way, he said, and think of poor Albus,  
He's been in this war for years, he wants a good rest,  
And if you don't figure it out for him, there's others will, I said.  
Oh is there, he said. Something o'that, I said.  _150_  
Then I'll know who to ask, he said, and give me a straight look.  
I SOLEMNLY SWEAR I AM UP TO NO GOOD  
If you can't figure it out I can get on with it, I said.  
Others can put it together if you can't.  
But if Albus dies off, it won't be for a lack of knowing.  _155_  
You ought to be so ashamed, I said, to be so obsessed with Malfoy.  
(And him not even a Death Eater yet.)  
I can't help it, Harry said, pulling a long face,  
It's them Slytherins I see, they make me suspicious, he said.  
(He's spotted five already, and nearly got pitched out a train window.)  _160_  
Madame Pomfrey said it would be all right, but I've never been the same.  
You are a proper prat, I said.  
Well, if Albus won't tell you more, there it is, I said,  
What you go to his office for if you don't want crypticism?  
I SOLEMNLY SWEAR I AM UP TO NO GOOD _165_  
Well, that Sunday Albus called you back, he had a new memory,  
And he asked you in to watch it, to get the beauty of it experienced  
I SOLEMNLY SWEAR I AM UP TO NO GOOD  
I SOLEMNLY SWEAR I AM UP TO NO GOOD  
Goonight Seamus. Goonight Dean. Goonight Ginny. Goonight.  _170_  
Ta ta. Goonight. Goonight.  
Good night, Gryffindors, good night, brave Gryffindors, good night, good night.

 

 

 

**III. THE FIRE POTION**

  
THE tower’s stairs are broken; the last fingers of stone  
Clutch and sink into the castle floor. The wind  
Crosses the broken land, unheard. The nymphs are departed. _175_  
Sweet Fawkes, burn softly, till I end my song.  
The school’s lake bears no empty bottles, candy wrappers,  
Trick handkerchiefs, cardboard boxes, sugar quill ends  
Or other testimony of children’s trash. The nymphs are departed.  
And their friends, the loitering figures of friendly Aurors; _180_  
Departed, have left no addresses.  
By the waters of the lake I sat down and wept . . .  
Sweet Fawkes, burn softly till I end my song,  
Sweet Fawkes, burn softly, for I speak not loud or long.  
But at my back in a cold blast I hear _185_  
The scream of my mother, and chuckle spread from ear to ear.

A rat crept softly through the vegetation  
Dragging its slimy belly on the bank  
While I was searching in the Shrieking Shack  
On a summer evening round beneath the Willow _190_  
Musing upon the mage my godfather’s wreck  
And on the mage my father's death before him.  
Dementors floating o’er the low damp ground  
And frost left in a little low dry garret,  
Rattled by the rat's foot only, year to year. _195_  
But at my back from time to time I hear  
The sound of wings and gryffins, which shall bring  
Sirius to Mr. Potter in the spring.  
O the moon shone bright on Mr. Potter  
Who has no daughter _200_  
Whose feet to wash in soda water  
 _Et O ces voix d'enfants, chantant dans les dortoirs!_

Squawk squawk squawk  
Chirp chirp chirp chirp chirp chirp  
So sweetly sung. _205_  
Toodle-oo

Unreal City  
Under the brown fog of an autumn noon  
Mr. Borgin the antiques merchant  
Unshaven, with a pocket full of currants _210_  
C.i.f. London: documents at sight,  
Asked me in sly Parseltongue  
To luncheon at the Leaky Cauldron Inn  
Followed by a weekend trip to Hogsmeade.

At the witching hour, when the eyes and back _215_  
Turn upward from their shops, when the human wizards wait  
Like a knight bus throbbing waiting,  
I Firenze, though centaur, throbbing between two halves,  
Young man with equine hindquarters, can see  
At the witching hour, the evening hour that strives _220_  
Homeward, and brings the mermen home to sea,  
The teacher home at teatime, clears her papers, lights  
Her stove, and lays out biscuits in tins.  
Out of the window perilously spread  
Her drying incantations touched by the sun's last rays, _225_  
On the teacups are piled (quite like a bed)  
Sunbeams, slippers, coloured shawls, and stays.  
I Firenze, young man with horsey mane  
Perceived the scene and foretold the rest  
I too awaited the expected guest. _230_  
He, the young man prophesied, arrives,  
The red house sports team’s captain, with one bold scar,  
One of the brave on whom assurance sits  
As Death Eaters gone straight after the war  
The tea leaves conjure naught but sodden messes,  
The class continues, he is bored and tired,  
She endeavours to engage him in her guesses _235_  
Which are still unproven and quite undesired.  
Flushed and unhappy, he recoils at once;  
But minds unstudied offer no defence; _240_  
His vanity yet can’t provide response,  
and wishes she’d accept indifference.  
(And I Firenze have foresuffered all  
Enacted on this same remote high tower;  
I who have sat by Ronan along the wall _245_  
And walked among the forest leaf and flower.)  
Bestows one final patronising ‘ma’am,’  
And gropes his way, finding the stairs quite steep . . .

She turns and looks a moment in her glass,  
He seizes the moment and then runs for cover; _250_  
His brain allows one half-formed thought to pass:  
'Well now that's done: and I'm glad it's over.'  
When prophet woman stoops to folly and  
Paces about her room again, alone,  
She smoothes her hair with slightly shaky hand, _255_  
And puts a record on the gramophone.

‘Oh, come and stir my cauldron’  
And along the Strand, up Diagon Alley.  
O Magic magic, I can sometimes hear  
Beside a barred-off pub in Knockturn Alley _260_  
The pleasant whining of a mandoline  
And a clatter and a chatter from within  
Where witches lounge at noon: where the walls  
Of happy Hogwarts hold  
Magnificent splendour of Gryffindor red and gold. _265_

      The castle sweats  
      Snakes and sparks  
      The carriages drift  
      With the thestral herd  
      Red eyes _270_  
      Wide  
      To leeward, swings on the heavy spar.  
      The carriages  
      Drift across logs  
      Down Hogsmeade’s stretch _275_  
      Past wolves and dogs.  
            Avadada kedavra  
            Avadda kedavrara

      Oliver Wood and Marcus Flint  
      Beaters both _280_  
      The seats were filled  
      A gilded ball  
      Red and gold  
      The quaffle  
      Rippled both sides  _285_  
      Southwest wind  
      Carried down field  
      The peal of yells  
      Stone towers  
            Avadada kedavra _290_  
            Avadda kedavrara

'Brooms and nearby trees.  
The Weasleys beat me. Crabbe and Goyle  
Undid me. By halftime I raised my knees  
Astride the back of a narrow Firebolt.' _295_  
'My feet are at Quidditch and my heart  
Under my feet. After the match  
He wept. He promised "a new start."  
I made no comment. What should I resent?'  
'At Grimmauld Place. _300_  
I can connect  
Nothing with nothing.  
The broken furniture of dirty rooms.  
The portraits horrid portraits who expect  
Nothing.' _305_  
      da vra

To Hogwarts then I came  
Burning burning burning burning  
Albus thou pluckest me out  
Albus thou pluckest _310_

burning

 

 

 

**IV. DEATH BY MAGUS**

  
ALBUS the Magician, a fortnight dead,  
Forgot the cries of students, and the giant squid  
And the aurors and elves.  
                          A certain colleague then _315_  
Crushed his bones with whispers. As he rose and fell  
He passed the stages of his age and youth  
Tumbling off the castle.  
                          Gryffindor and Slytherin, too  
O you who flick your wands and look to spellwork,  _320_  
Consider Albus, who was once headmaster and young as you.

 

 

 

**V. WHAT THE HEADMASTER SAID**

  
AFTER the scars torn red on pretty faces  
After the frosty silence on the tower  
After the agony in stony hallways  
The shouting and the crying _325_  
Prison and schoolhouse and reverberation  
Of thunder of giants over distant mountains  
He who was living is now dead  
We who were living are now dying  
With little education _330_

Here there is no sky but only cave  
Cave and water and the ambling dead  
The boat rocking perilously over their graves  
Which are caves themselves made of water  
If there were sky we should stop and think _335_  
Confronted with the potion there is to drink  
Blood is spilt and bodies in the sea  
If there were only another way around  
Dead mountain mouth of carious teeth that cannot spit  
Here one can neither stand nor lie nor sit _340_  
There is no visible entrance in the caverns  
But blazing silvered archway lies in wait  
There is not even solitude in the caverns  
But dead pale faces sneer and snarl  
From dank reflective waters _345_  
          If there were sky  
  And no cave  
  If there were cave  
  And also sky  
  A star _350_  
  The moon among the cave  
  If there were the horcrux trial only  
  Not the blank wall  
  And human hand clutching  
  But the glimmer of night air blowing _345_  
  Where that damn fake Latin word for zombie shambles in the water  
  Urrrrgh ugh urrrgh ugh urrrgh ugh urrrgh ugh  
  But there is no sky

Who is that form who walks always beside you?  
When I count, there are only you and I together _360_  
But when I look ahead up to the island  
There is always another one walking beside you  
Running, antlers tossing back and forth, four-footed  
I do not know whether a man or a woman  
But who is that on the other side of you? _365_

What is that sound high in the air  
Murmur of infernal lamentation  
Who are those hooded hordes swarming  
Over endless plains, released from their prison  
Sucking the souls gleefully _370_  
What is that prison out in the waters  
Cracks and reforms and holding the history  
Of wizardry  
Gryffindor Slytherin Ravenclaw  
Hufflepuff Voldemort _375_  
Unreal

The wizard drew the boat-chain out tight  
And gazed into the phosphorescent glow  
The potion sat and simmered in the endless night  
Eyes met, and the fatal blow _380_  
Comes not from hand but liquid.  
And in his hand the goblet  
Again and again, drained down to droplet  
And pleas for mercy ring around the exhausted well.

In this stone castle among the mountains _385_  
In the faint moonlight, the nymphs are singing  
Over the tumbled graves, about his office  
There is his empty office, only the wind's home.  
It has no windows, and the door locked,  
Portraits can harm no one. _390_  
Only a phoenix stood by its perch  
Co co rico co co rico  
Then its flash of fire. Then a damp gust  
Bringing rain

Hogwarts was sunken, and the students _395_  
Waited for rain, while the black clouds  
Gathered far distant, over Hogsmeade.  
The forest crouched, humped in silence.  
Then spoke the headmaster  
TWEAK _400_  
 _Nitwit:_ what have we given?  
My friend, blood shaking my heart  
The awful daring of a gold snitch captured  
Which a score of scored goals can never equal  
By this, and this only, we have existed _405_  
Which is not to be found in our diaries  
Or in memories draped by the oversized spider  
Or under seals broken by the pink-haired auror  
In our requirement rooms  
TWEAK _410_  
 _Oddiment:_ I have heard Dementors  
Leave their posts once and leave once only  
We think of the Dementors, each in our prisons  
Thinking of Dementors, each confirms a prison  
Only at nightfall, delirious rumours _415_  
Revive for a moment a broken Lucius Malfoy  
TWEAK  
 _Blubber:_ The boats responded  
Gaily, to the hand expert using wands to steer  
The sea was calm, the first-years have responded _420_  
Gaily, when transported, beating obedient  
To professorial hands

                      I sat upon the shore  
Fishing, with the giant squid beneath me  
Shall I at least set my schoolbooks in order? _425_

Voldemort is falling down falling down falling down

 _Poi s'ascose nel foco che gli affina_  
 _Quando fiam ceu phoenix_ \--O phoenix phoenix  
 _Le Prince de Moitié-Sang à la tour abolie_   _430_  
These fragments I have shored against my ruins  
Why then Ile fit you. Mooney’s mad againe.  
Nitwit. Oddiment. Blubber. Tweak.

            Mischief managed.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Credit where credit is due: This entire horror, originally posted [here](http://ladysisyphus.livejournal.com/294368.html), was perpetrated in fairly equal parts by myself and [rahaeli](http://rahaeli.livejournal.com/) \-- and is pretty funny, considering that the [original joke](http://www.livejournal.com/users/ladysisyphus/293068.html?thread=3233228#t3233228) involved 'The Hollow Men.' The [original poem](http://www.bartleby.com/201/1.html) is by T.S. Eliot; characters, situations, and jargon from J.K. Rowling; both stolen and abused with all due respect. No infringement or profit intended -- though if you like it, buy one of us a drink sometime. All errors intentional (except the ones that aren't), and this includes any abuse done to languages that are not English. I regret nothing except that it probably took longer to format into HTML than it took to write.


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